Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah (Lost Loves of the Bible) (26 page)

DELILAH

The creek glittered in the noon sun. I watched as children ran through it, screaming with delight as the cool water ran past their ankles. I did not mind watching older children. I had never had one. I picked up my tunic, walking back toward my home now. It had been less than a day’s walk to Ashdod, but I could have gone faster if I had wanted to.

I hadn’t.

Lord Galenos had called me to his home. He sent word that he had something of importance to discuss with me. He had welcomed me from his perch in the center of the room.

“Lord Marcos preferred to sit on a bench, with the others,” I told him.

Galenos shrugged. “Did he? I always liked Marcos. He was a good man. But we have a matter of official business, Delilah. Sit down.”

My throat was swelling, closing. I clenched my jaws together, shaking my head, refusing his offer. I did not want to sit in this house. I wanted to run. How could he not understand? I had lived here once, one brief happy window into another way of life.

“The five lords are prepared to make you an offer.”

“For what?”

He smiled. “Don’t you want to profit from what is inevitable?”

“In my experience, Lord Galenos, the inevitable is death. And the dead do not profit.”

He stood, offering me his arm, as if we should walk like friends through my former home. I had no wish to see it, so I refused again, shaking my head. Color flushed to his cheeks.

“Each lord is prepared to pay you eleven hundred pieces of silver. That’s five thousand, five hundred pieces of silver, my dear. A man’s life is worth only twelve, maybe twenty if he has some special merit,” Lord Galenos said.

The money he spoke of, the sum, was immense. Silver was power. Much silver was much power. My father had worked a year for five pieces. With the sum Galenos offered, I wouldn’t just have freedom. I would have freedom and power. That might make life worth living, if only to see that others suffered as I had.

“What could I do to earn such a fee?”

“One small favor. We know of your affair with the Hebrew, Samson.”

I remained still. I would not have called it an affair, but there was no reason to share that secret.

“All you must do is ask Samson about the source of his great strength. Our magicians have been of no help, but after all, he is a Hebrew, and we do not understand his gods.”

“His god.”

“What?”

“His god. They only have one.” I suddenly did not like Galenos. I did not like him standing in Marcos’s house, or speaking to me as a friend, or offering me such sums.

“Strange people, aren’t they? Not at all like us.”

I pressed my lips together as my stomach rose. Perhaps it had happened—his strange god had been at work in my sorrow. All had led me to Samson, had it not? But for what purpose? To make me rich?

I bowed before Galenos and walked home, taking a slow pace, letting others pass me, unwilling to return home before nightfall.

I did not want Samson to read my face. I did not know what it would reveal.

Children watched me from their windows, giggling as I walked by; terse whispers from mothers corrected them, dragging them down. Word was spreading. Samson, the enemy of the Philistines, had been tamed by a temple priestess. I don’t know what made me more of a curiosity to them—that I lived alone in freedom after service in the temple, or that I had won the heart of the strongest, strangest enemy our people had ever known.

Samson was waiting for me. He had retreated into the quiet of the home below. He had a side of lamb on the table for me, raw and wet. I flinched, my eyebrows rising in question.

“I was hungry,” he said.

“I don’t know how to cook.”

“You’re a woman.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that. But still, I don’t know how to cook. You’ll have to take it to the market. Someone there will cook it for you.”

“What other secrets are you hiding from me?” He was moving toward me, a smile on his lips. He did not know I had made my choice. Or perhaps he did; who can say how his god moved in this world?

I stepped back and raised a finger. “I am not the one with secrets.”

“What? If you heard about the brothels, that happened in the past.”

“You told me so much, didn’t you? But not the whole truth. That, I am sure, is reserved for the woman you love.”

“Stop.”

“It’s all right. I know you cannot love me. I am your sworn enemy.” I narrowed my eyes so, if his god was willing, he would not fall into my trap. I could be merciful, too. If anything he had told me was true, it was this: The Hebrews hated the Philistines. We were his enemies. He should not be here.

Not if he had told me the truth.

“What will you give me?” he asked. “If I tell you the whole truth, whatever you want to know?”

“What do you want?” The words hung in the air between us, like the first chill air of a building storm.

He pulled me into his arms, and I kissed him, hard, on the mouth, fighting him in my way, my back rigid as he removed my tunic, my neck stiff as he bent it back to press his mouth to mine again. He leaned back then, pressing his hands on either side of my face, forcing me to look up into his eyes. He did not blink. I saw myself in him, my hard face with smeared lips, my cold dead eyes. I didn’t want to be that woman. I didn’t want to choose that path.

I softened under his control, and we did not have need to roast that lamb until much later in the night.

I kicked him with one foot. The sun was already high, and he was sweating on my blankets.

“Tell me.”

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “You woke me up for this?”

“I woke you up to see what kind of man you are on the morning after.”

He groaned but did not lie back down. He yawned and shook his head side to side, the heavy braids flinging with dull flapping sounds in all directions.

“Seven fresh bowstrings,” he said. “If you tie me with seven fresh bowstrings, I’m powerless. That’s the secret of my strength.”

I frowned. The answer had come too easily to him. I could not tell if he was lying or telling the truth.

“Our magicians don’t use bowstrings.”

“Your magicians are worthless.”

I went below and fetched a child, who was to fetch a lord, who was to fetch the seven fresh bowstrings. By the fourth hour after the morning meal, I had them. I laid them on the table below, where the bones of the lamb were piled in a gnawed heap. Samson came below to see who had knocked at my door. He saw the bowstrings on the table and smiled at me, the smile of an innocent. I smiled in return, a silent promise of treachery. Or truth. Maybe they were the same.

He lay down on my pallet, crossing his feet, watching me as he tucked his arms behind his head.

“What are you going to do with those?”

“Tie you up.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“I’m going to find out if you are a liar.”

“You don’t need to know the secret of my strength. Unless there is something you are not telling me.”

“There’s not!” I shouted it, provoked. It was foolish of me.

Samson grinned. He had won the exchange. “Maybe you are the liar.”

I grabbed the bowstrings from the table. They stank of animal and felt like dried gristle in my hands.

I dumped them at his feet and knelt, struggling to slide a rope under his feet. He offered no assistance, but just lay there, still and amused. I tied his feet together and moved to his head, yanking each heavy arm free, laying it on his belly. I was sweating by now, and he seemed to find it all great entertainment. I hoped that the bowstrings would burn his bare flesh if I ripped them fast enough. Laying each wrist on top of the other, I pulled a bowstring around them, tying it down to the wrists in a knot, then tying a knot over my knot, yanking up as hard as I could to tighten it beyond endurance.

Still, he grinned.

I had one bowstring left, and I had seen how butchers tied their animals. I pulled the bowstring under his neck, tying it in a knot at his throat, then pulling the ends down and securing them at his wrists. I stood, bracing against him with one foot, and yanked, so that his head was forced down as I shortened the length between his neck and his wrists.

The great enemy of the Philistines was bound like an animal before me, and still he laughed, a high-pitched giggle, as if he was playing a game. I was not going to release him. If he had told me the truth, he was going to die in this position.

“Now, what do you say?” I poked him with one toe. “Were you lying? Or do you love me?”

He struggled to raise his head. “That’s not funny.”

I opened my door, looking out in the street. The boy who had fetched the bowstrings was standing not far from my door, eager for my sign. I nodded, and he whistled, calling his two friends out from their hiding places under a blanket in the corner of the room.

I turned back to Samson. “There are men here, Samson! The Philistines are upon you!”

He pushed against the bowstrings, one small pulse, and they fell from his ankles, wrists and neck. Standing without effort, his mouth was set in a hard line. The boys cowered when they saw his size in such close quarters. He did not even glance at them.

“I don’t care if you test my strength. But don’t test me. Don’t make me try to prove what I feel.”

“I don’t need to! I know what you feel for me.” I spat the words at his feet. He was a fool to think I would want him after he lied to me.

The boys crept like kittens toward the door, and ran.

“I don’t think you do. I don’t think any man has ever loved you like I do.”

I crossed the distance to him and raised one hand to slap him into silence, but he caught my hand and then caught me around the waist, lifting me off the ground so that my toes grazed the earth and nothing else.

But of what happened then, I will say nothing except this: I did not need to feel the ground anymore. I knew only Samson and thought nothing else of this earth.

MOTHER

Samson had returned. The men were shouting, and the children running about squealing, and the women talking behind their hands. Only Samson could inspire such simultaneous delight and scorn.

Samson had returned to us in the spring, just before Passover. He looked terrible, my beautiful son, with dark circles under his eyes, and fat covering his ribs where once only muscle had been. That woman had been cruel to him, I could tell, and what she was feeding him was an injustice. She had no idea how to care for a man.

He did not knock on our front door but opened it and strode in. I tried to conceal my hard breathing, so he would not know I had been at the window, watching.

He entered our home as if it were still his and, coming to me first, gave me a kiss on the cheek. I was sitting next to Manoah, who was eating at our table. Manoah tried to stand, and I saw his legs shaking. Samson rested a hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently to remain seated.

“When do we roast the lamb?” Samson smiled, as if today was a cheerful day.

I replied. “It is not a celebration. It is a memorial. That we were spared the wrath of God.”

Samson nodded, not listening. He sat beside Manoah to tell him news from the territories.

I stepped back, tears stinging, as I pressed my lips together, unwilling to display any emotion. He was home, my son. He was still a judge among our people and still chosen by God to deliver us. It was enough, for today, to dwell on these truths. Truths, and not circumstances, because the two did not match at all.

I was already losing Manoah, a little bit more every week. All my strength as a woman, as a mother, was gone. I could not bear another moment of loss.

I forced a smile and set two bowls on the table.

“I will fix you both some curds. And I will roast the lamb. It is good to have you home, Samson.”

DELILAH

The game continued. Samson did not find it fun. But I had caught a scent, like a lioness stranded and hungry. I couldn’t help what I wanted. If he didn’t understand that, his god would. Maybe his god even knew which I desired more: a life with Samson, or life through Samson’s death. A life of immense power. I had no thoughts for what I would do with it. Only the certainty that it might protect me from pain. Immense wealth, immense power, might be enough.

I wrinkled my nose, considering the choices. Samson had been talking. I blinked my eyes and tried to pay attention to him. He was leaning against my legs as I sat working my loom. I did not know what I was making.

“I can protect you without telling you my secret. I can overpower any enemy of yours.”

Songs of the harvest girls made me lift my head and pause to listen. The women had a hard life here. Maybe everywhere. I did not know. Their hands would be calloused and dry when I saw them in the market, and they would hold their backs in their soreness. And when they finally stopped the harvest, it was time to process all their bounty. Pickling, pressing, fermenting, spicing, stewing, roasting.

“If we didn’t have to eat, life would be easier,” I said to Samson.

“Without food, there is no energy for love.”

“Again, life would be easier.”

He turned around to face me, ready for another argument.

“Don’t worry, Samson. I know what you want. That, at least, is no secret.”

He stood, not even looking at me now. He walked toward the door. I picked up an empty spindle and threw it at him, hitting him right in the back between his shoulder blades.

“You have made a fool of me! You lied to me!” I screamed.

He didn’t turn back. A red welt was already showing itself. “I’m trying to protect you, Delilah, from yourself.”

“Don’t come back!” I screamed again. He opened the door, and I saw neighbors outside, peering in with interest.

He paused, his back to me. “If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I’ll become as weak as any other man. Think about what you will do with this knowledge.”

He did not return that night. I sat alone on the roof, watching the fires in the village as families cooked their meat, mothers laughing as children chased each other under the stars. The harvest was almost over. Soon there would be a feast, and after that, for all of them, even the women after their work was done, a rest. A long, quiet rest. Like death. Or sleep without faces that disturbed the dreamer.

Samson returned the next morning, stinking of new wine but not women. That surprised me. He collapsed onto my pallet below and was soon snoring, his face to the wall. He did not take off his sandals.

He might have told me the truth. He might expect to be taken away, or murdered right there, and a man would want to die with dignity. A man of any culture would want to die with his sandals and tunic.

The ropes rested in a woven basket by the door. I had sent for them last night. I slid silently to them, lifting them up in the cool, soft air. They did not scratch like old ropes; they still smelled of the fields and were green as meadow snakes, coiling around my arms, fresh and alive.

This time was different. This time, Lord Galenos had sent his own guards to be hidden on my roof. Even Lord Galenos knew Samson would lie to me the first time, that he should not waste real men on my first attempt. I had not been sure. I still did not understand the ways of men and their secrets.

I tied him up. He was drunk and asleep, and that made my task harder, not easier.

When his feet were bound, I moved to his wrists, and when his wrists were bound, I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

He murmured my name.

I sat back on my haunches, looking at him.

Deliverance was always offered to the wrong people.

“Samson, the Philistines are upon you!”

At my cue, Lord Galenos’s men stormed down the ladder from the roof. I counted four of them before Samson burst up from behind me, shaking off the ropes. He ripped the sword from the first man and drove an elbow into his throat. The second man was already swinging his sword, and Samson brought the first man’s sword around, plunging it into the second man’s abdomen. Philistine swords were made for cutting on both sides; now I understood why they were esteemed.

What happened to the other two men I cannot say. I hid behind my tunic while men fell dead in my quiet, cool home. Blood pooled and ran toward me, circling me, my toes growing sticky and hot.

Samson said nothing. He dragged the bodies into the street and returned with straw, laying it across the red stains.

“I’m hungry.”

I stood there, unmoving. I was not even breathing.

I pointed to his face. A smear of blood, rested on his cheek, the same cheek I had kissed, the same cheek that had made me reconsider what I was doing.

He frowned, not understanding.

“You have … something … there.” I pointed again.

He smiled, happy to know the answer, and wiped his face with his tunic. It was stained red, too, but he did not seem to see it. He did not see blood. He did not see death. What he saw, when he moved against the Philistines, I did not know. It was a mystery—a holy mystery perhaps—known only to him and his god.

He extended a hand to me. “Let’s go to the market.”